PDF Summary:Bringing Out the Best in People, by Aubrey C. Daniels

Unlock your employees' full potential with insights from behavior management expert Aubrey C. Daniels. In Bringing Out the Best in People, Daniels challenges traditional management methods, which often fail to consistently improve performance, and instead proposes an approach grounded in science. Using behavior analysis, Daniels examines how employees’ actions are influenced by their environment—and how managers can create a work environment that encourages employees to give their all, leading to better business outcomes and more engaged employees.

In this guide, we explore common ineffective management strategies and outline Daniels’s five-step approach for cultivating a healthier, more productive work environment. In our commentary, we’ll explore tips from other experts in management, psychology, and behavioral change.

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Step 2: Assess Performance to Date

In Step 2 of Daniels’s approach, you’ll collect baseline data about your employees’ current performance to use as a reference point for evaluating how effective your behavioral intervention is. Daniels suggests clearly communicating the purpose of the evaluation process—he notes that many employees are uncomfortable with performance assessments because they fear being judged or punished based on the results. This discomfort often stems from past experiences where evaluations were used solely for disciplinary purposes. To mitigate this fear and gain accurate baseline data, emphasize that evaluations are intended to identify areas for growth and improvement, not to find fault or assign blame.

(Shortform note: Framing performance assessments in this way helps you create what Amy C. Edmonson refers to as psychological safety in the workplace. In The Fearless Organization, Edmonson explains that psychological safety is the belief that one can speak up, take risks, and risk failure without fear of judgment or reprisal. By assuring employees that the purpose of performance assessments is growth and improvement, you foster a culture where they feel safe to engage in open communication and experimentation. This enhances employee engagement (the ultimate goal of Daniels’s management approach) as well as performance and innovation.)

What Kinds of Data Should You Collect?

Daniels says managers should collect two kinds of baseline data about employee behaviors: quantitative and qualitative data.

Quantitative data is more objective, so Daniels recommends focusing on that whenever possible. He also recommends using raw data—like simple frequency counts, response times, and numerical scores—over processed data like percentages and averages. Raw data provides a more accurate picture of behavior as it captures specific, concrete actions rather than potentially distorting the results through calculations or transformations.

For example, instead of averaging the time employees take to respond to customer inquiries, you might track individual response times for each inquiry. This allows you to see how consistently employees meet response time targets and identify any outliers or patterns that could signal specific problems.

(Shortform note: Daniels’s emphasis on using raw data aligns with Darrell Huff’s warnings about processed data in How to Lie with Statistics. Huff cautions that processed data can easily distort the reality of a situation. For example, averages can obscure outliers or significant variations in the data, giving a skewed impression of overall performance. As a manager, you probably wouldn’t intentionally distort the facts, but it’s easy to make statistical mistakes that lead to inaccurate conclusions. By focusing on raw data, managers can gain a more transparent and accurate view of employee behavior, allowing for clearer insights and better decision-making.)

Qualitative data describe your subjective assessments of aspects of performance that can’t be counted, like an employee’s acumen for customer service. Because qualitative data are subjective, many people consider them less reliable than quantitative data.

However, Daniels says there are two ways to ensure your qualitative data are fair and reliable: First, develop standardized rubrics that assign ratings based on certain behavioral criteria. For example, if you’re evaluating an employee’s customer service skills, your rubric might include categories such as communication clarity, problem-solving ability, and empathy, with each category rated on a scale of 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent). Second, ask someone else to review your qualitative data; this reduces the risk of personal bias and makes evaluations more consistent.

(Shortform note: Another way to enhance the reliability of your qualitative data is to ground your assessments in well-established theories, frameworks, or scientific evidence. For example, if you want to evaluate an employee’s customer service skills, you might start by researching the important components of stellar customer service as well as related concepts like emotional intelligence. Then, you can use what you learn to build a standardized rubric that captures these elements, ensuring that your assessments are objective and aligned with recognized standards. This is similar to what researchers do when they conduct a literature review, which helps them place their studies in the context of existing knowledge and methodologies.)

Step 3: Communicate Feedback and Goals

Step 3 of Daniels’s approach involves giving employees feedback about their performance so far and setting up goals for them to aim for. Both feedback and goals are potent antecedents—they help employees understand whether they need to speed up, slow down, or be more careful in their work.

How to Deliver Feedback

Daniels explains that the way you deliver feedback has a significant impact on its effectiveness. When providing feedback, focus only on aspects that are within the employee’s control. This ensures that the feedback is actionable and doesn’t lead to frustration over outcomes that are beyond their influence. Additionally, Daniels recommends that you give individual feedback privately; public recognition can be uncomfortable or demoralizing for those who are underperforming. In contrast, you should give group feedback publicly—this can encourage mutual support among your employees.

How to Set Goals for Your Employees

Daniels suggests setting easily achievable, bite-sized goals for your employees and taking things one goal at a time. Easy goals are those that are just beyond an employee’s current reach. The employee is more likely to succeed at these than they are at challenging goals, which increases the likelihood of positive reinforcement and boosts their motivation to keep doing their best. This means that, somewhat counterintuitively, easy goals can be more effective at improving performance than challenging ones. It’s also important to set goals that are fair—instead of giving everyone on your team the same goal, tailor individual goals to suit each person’s current performance level.

How to Help Your Employees Grow

In Coaching for Performance, Sir John Whitmore suggests that you approach management like coaching—your aim is to help maximize employees’ potential and improve their performance. When you coach employees, you don’t just point out their flaws and tell them what to do to improve. Instead, you communicate the information they need to develop self-confidence, autonomy, and ownership of their work—qualities that can motivate employees to demonstrate the kind of discretionary effort Daniels promotes.

Here’s how to integrate Whitmore’s advice on coaching as you implement Step 3 of Daniels’s approach to management:

Set up regular coaching sessions. Daniels assumes that you’ll only give your employees feedback and goals once per behavioral intervention, but Whitmore suggests that coaching is more effective when it’s ongoing.

Build an authentic, trusting connection. Whitmore says that to accomplish this, you should practice active listening and let go of any negative assumptions or judgments you have about the employee you’re coaching.

Use the GROW model. This model has four stages: goal setting, reality (assessing whether the goal is realistic), options (exploring ways the employee could achieve their goal), and will (motivating the employee to achieve the goal). Like Daniels, Whitmore recommends setting small, achievable goals; as the employee accomplishes these goals, they’ll naturally build the self-confidence they need to succeed over the long term. However, unlike Daniels, Whitmore recommends that you pinpoint a larger, more difficult goal for the employee to work up to. Each small goal you set can serve as a stepping stone on the path to this goal.

Offer feedback often. Once your coachee has a plan for achieving their goals, check in with them regularly to discuss their progress and give feedback. Whitmore says you should deliver feedback in positive, non-confrontational terms, as this encourages employees to keep growing. You should also have a final coaching session after the employee achieves their goal, so you can discuss the process, what they’ve learned, and how they’ll move forward.

Although Whitmore’s coaching advice is optimized for one-on-one coaching relationships, he notes that you can also use it in a team setting. If you opt to coach groups of employees instead of individuals, take Daniels’s advice: Give individual feedback privately and group feedback publicly. Experts say this helps you balance the need for personalized attention with the need for team cohesion.

Step 4: Encourage With Consequences

The fourth step—using consequences—is the crux of Daniels’s approach to management. According to Daniels, people tend to repeat behaviors that lead to positive consequences while avoiding those that have negative consequences. This means you can leverage consequences to reinforce desired behaviors and deter undesired behaviors. Daniels lists two main types of behavioral consequences; we’ll discuss each, along with some of Daniels’s tips for harnessing their power.

Consequence #1: Positive Reinforcement

Positive reinforcement is a motivational technique that works by tying desired behaviors to positive outcomes, thereby increasing the likelihood they’ll be repeated. Daniels asserts that positive reinforcement is the only way to promote discretionary effort—it creates a clear and rewarding connection between employees’ actions and their sense of satisfaction, motivating them to consistently invest extra effort into their work.

(Shortform note: Positive reinforcement works by leveraging the brain’s natural reward system. When a behavior is followed by a positive outcome, the brain releases dopamine—a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and satisfaction. This release reinforces the behavior by creating a sense of reward, making it more likely that the behavior will be repeated. Research shows that dopamine not only boosts motivation but also enhances learning by strengthening neural connections associated with the rewarded behavior. This is why positive reinforcement is effective in training both humans and animals to engage in desired behaviors.)

There are two kinds of positive reinforcement:

• Natural positive reinforcement: This occurs when the behavior automatically produces a positive outcome (like the satisfaction a writer naturally gets from writing). Daniel notes that unfortunately, most work tasks do not include natural positive reinforcements.
• Created positive reinforcement: When positive reinforcements don’t come naturally, managers must create them. Created reinforcements include social recognition (like praise and celebrations) and tangible rewards (like bonuses and prizes).

(Shortform note: In Flow, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi explains that when work includes natural positive reinforcements, it induces a state of flow—an optimal state of engagement where individuals are fully absorbed in their tasks and experience intrinsic satisfaction. This state occurs when there is a perfect balance between challenge and skill, with clear goals and immediate feedback. As Daniels notes, however, most work is not conducive to flow because it’s not inherently rewarding. (You probably don’t get much satisfaction from writing emails, for example.) Managers can create external positive reinforcements to make up for this, or they can give employees greater freedom to choose the tasks that do allow for flow.)

Daniels clarifies that to effectively use positive reinforcement, you must tailor your approach to each individual. What motivates one person may not work for another, so as a manager, you need to understand what resonates with different team members. Try various types of positive reinforcement and pay attention to how people respond. The act of showing interest and attention can itself be reinforcing, since it demonstrates that you value your employees. You can also take notice of which activities people on your team willingly take on (they’re more likely to choose activities that are naturally positively reinforcing).

(Shortform note: In Find Your Why, Simon Sinek argues that everyone has an underlying life purpose that motivates them to work and behave in certain ways. For example, someone whose purpose is to help others might seek out opportunities to be of service, while someone whose purpose is to innovate might be drawn to creative problem-solving tasks. Sinek offers an approach for finding your own purpose, or “why,” which you can tailor to discover what motivates your employees. For example, you might lead a purpose discussion where employees share their personal and work-related goals and motivations. Then, you could use this information to brainstorm effective positive reinforcements for each team member.)

Daniels also says it’s important to consistently reinforce the behaviors you want to encourage. If you fail to recognize and reward good behaviors, those behaviors will gradually disappear, even if they were once common. This phenomenon is known as extinction. Extinction happens because when people anticipate a positive outcome that never comes, they feel disappointed; this discourages them from further engaging in the behavior.

(Shortform note: B.F. Skinner, the psychologist who first observed extinction, offers ways to prevent extinction. One strategy is to refrain from rewarding the desired behavior with positive reinforcement each and every time it occurs. This may seem counterintuitive, given Daniels’s advice to use positive reinforcements consistently. However, Skinner showed that when you reinforce a behavior only some of the time, the behavior is less vulnerable to extinction. This is because the brain is highly attuned to unpredictable stimuli, often reacting more strongly to occasional rewards than constant ones.)

Consequence #2: Negative Reinforcement

Daniels states that negative reinforcement discourages repetition of a behavior by tying it to an unpleasant consequence. These consequences can be punishments (natural outcomes of the behavior, like reprimands) or penalties (outcomes that take something of value away from the employee, like pay cuts). (Shortform note: Some experts define punishments and penalties a bit differently than Daniels does. According to Principles of Behavior by Richard Malott, punishments add an aversive stimulus, while penalties remove a positive stimulus. Both types of negative reinforcement can occur naturally or be induced by an outside person or force.)

While negative reinforcement can be useful for achieving short-term results, Daniels advises against using them too liberally. He says negative reinforcement prompts employees to do just enough to avoid the consequence and doesn’t encourage them to invest discretionary effort into their work. For example, say you set a rule that employees must follow procedures exactly as documented, or else they’ll be fired. They’ll likely follow the procedures to the letter, but they may not engage creatively or suggest improvements to the process, as they’re primarily focused on avoiding negative outcomes.

Additionally, too much negative reinforcement can create a negative work environment, where the relationship between management and employees is defined by constant monitoring of employee behavior and a fear of punishment. Daniels explains that companies default to negative reinforcement because they assume it works best, but positive reinforcement is ultimately a more effective motivator.

Why Negative Reinforcement Is Counterproductive

Daniels notes two major drawbacks of negative reinforcement. Let’s explore each of these drawbacks in greater detail.

According to Daniels, negative reinforcement prompts employees to do just enough to avoid the consequence. Business experts refer to this phenomenon as minimal compliance and explain that it’s a sign your employees aren’t fully engaged. Disengaged employees are more likely to exhibit absenteeism, leave for another job, and engage in unsafe and inappropriate behaviors. They might also engage in malicious compliance: following rules to the letter in a way that creates additional challenges. For example, an employee might respond to your threat of firing them if they don’t follow procedures by strictly adhering to outdated processes that slow down workflow.

Daniels also notes that workplaces that rely on negative reinforcements become negative environments in two ways. First, managers must constantly monitor employee behavior. This can easily lead to micromanagement, a management style where managers closely oversee every small detail of employees’ work. Micromanaging can erode trust and autonomy, making employees feel that their skills and judgment are not valued. This decreases employees’ motivation and overall job satisfaction.

Second, negative reinforcement creates a fear of punishment that can define the employee-manager relationship and undermine employees’ sense of psychological safety. As we discussed earlier, Amy C. Edmonson argues in The Fearless Organization that without psychological safety, employees are afraid of making mistakes or facing consequences. They may thus avoid taking risks or speaking up with new ideas, which limits opportunities for growth for both employees and the organization.

How to Use Reinforcement Effectively

Now that you understand the two kinds of reinforcement, let’s explore a few of Daniels’s tips for using reinforcements effectively.

Tip #1: Switch up your approach regularly. According to Daniels, the more often you use a consequence, the less impactful it becomes. This means you need to be adaptable and creative when it comes to reinforcing behavior. For example, instead of always offering verbal praise for good performance, you could occasionally provide a small reward like a gift card or extra time off.

(Shortform note: The theory of hedonic adaptation may explain why consequences become less powerful the more often you use them. This theory holds that people quickly become accustomed to changes in their environment or experiences, so over time these changes have less of an emotional impact. For example, if an employee becomes used to receiving a certain type of reward or facing a specific consequence, the impact of these stimuli diminishes as they adapt.)

Tip #2: Reinforce behaviors as quickly as possible. Daniels explains that immediate consequences are more powerful than distant ones, even if they’re small. This means that acting quickly to reinforce desirable behaviors or to discourage undesirable ones will get you better results than waiting to deliver a bigger reward or punishment later on.

(Shortform note: One reason it’s more effective to reinforce behavior immediately is that many people struggle with delayed gratification. People tend to find immediate rewards more tempting than potential future rewards, so they may struggle to stay motivated if the reward is delayed. Similarly, it’s easier to discount a faraway negative consequence, like getting fired for inappropriate behavior, when the immediate effects of the behavior seem minor or even pleasant. For example, you might feel tempted to pad your time sheet to increase your next paycheck, even if it means losing your job if you’re caught at some point in the future.)

Tip #3: Ask employees for their input. Daniels recommends that in addition to finding out which reinforcements motivate your employees, you should ask them to give you feedback about how your company operates. He explains that people tend to be more emotionally invested in processes they have a say in. Thus, by giving employees the opportunity to shape the workplace, you create space for natural positive reinforcements to arise as they go about their work.

(Shortform note: Experts refer to this style of management as participative leadership. In addition to helping employees become more emotionally invested in their work, it also fosters trust between employees and managers. It’s further been shown to enhance innovation and improve performance, as well.)

Tip #4: Focus on building organic trust. Daniels writes that reinforcements only work if there’s a foundation of genuine trust between employees and management. If your employees don’t like or respect you, they won’t perceive anything you do or say positively, so your positive reinforcements won’t work. Similarly, negative reinforcement may backfire if employees feel unfairly targeted or unappreciated, leading them to resist or circumvent the rules. You can build trust by giving employees a realistic idea of what they can expect from you and following through on your promises consistently, especially when it comes to reinforcements.

(Shortform note: Stephen M.R. Covey offers several tips you can use to build trust with your employees in The Speed of Trust. In addition to the transparency and follow-through Daniels recommends, Covey suggests that you demonstrate humility and consideration for others and communicate clearly. He also recommends that you show others you trust them—people are more likely to meet or exceed your expectations when you express confidence that they can.)

Tip #5: Don’t combine positive and negative reinforcement. Daniels says it’s OK to use both approaches separately, but you should never use them at the same time. For example, you should avoid criticizing someone while you’re celebrating their success. This would dilute the positive feelings associated with the celebration, making it less effective.

(Shortform note: Other experts disagree with Daniels on this tip, especially when it comes to giving feedback. For example, in Communications Skills Training, James Williams argues that it’s best to give someone praise (a positive reinforcement) before criticizing them (a negative reinforcement). According to Williams, this softens the impact of negative feedback—which might be a good thing, given all the shortcomings of negative reinforcements that Daniels lists.)

Step 5: Review Your Progress

In the final step of Daniels’s approach, you’ll evaluate whether your behavioral intervention has helped you achieve your objective. To do this, gather the same kinds of data you collected in Step 2 and compare your results. Then, determine whether the behavior changed and whether you’re closer to achieving your objective than you were before.

(Shortform note: As you gather your post-intervention data, make sure you’re using the same methods you used to collect baseline data. For example, if you used a standardized rubric to evaluate abstract behaviors in Step 2, don’t make any changes to the rubric for Step 5. This ensures that you’re getting what Naked Statistics author Charles Wheelan calls “quality data.” Quality data is accurate and consistent, allowing you to make valid comparisons and draw reliable conclusions about the impact of your intervention.)

You can also ask your employees for feedback about the reinforcements you’ve been using. Daniels warns against asking people what reinforcements they want before your intervention because they may not know or answer honestly, but you can gather feedback afterward to gauge the intervention’s effectiveness.

(Shortform note: If you struggle with receiving or making good use of your employees’ feedback, Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen offer helpful tips in Thanks for the Feedback. For example,they suggest that when it comes to critical feedback, it’s best to temper your knee-jerk, defensive reactions and adopt a curious, open mindset instead.)

What to Do If Your Intervention Failed

If you determine that your intervention isn’t working, Daniels says there are two possible reasons: First, your reinforcement may not have been effective. This could happen for a variety of reasons—for example, you may not have chosen a reinforcement method that resonated with your employees, or you may have applied it too inconsistently. Second, you may have targeted the wrong behavior for change. This is likely the case when it seems that your employees’ behavior has changed radically but you’re still not getting the results you want. Use this information to guide your next intervention—change either the reinforcements you use or the behavior you target, and see whether your results improve.

(Shortform note: If you’re not sure why your intervention failed, try Toyota’s “five whys” method for getting to the root of organizational problems. Begin by asking why the intervention wasn’t successful. For example, if employees aren’t responding to the reinforcement, ask why that might be. If the answer is that employees aren’t motivated by the rewards, the next “why” could be to explore why the rewards aren’t motivating. Maybe the rewards aren’t aligned with what employees value. Continue this process—asking “why” for each answer—until you identify the core issue. The Toyota technique recommends that you ask “why” five times, but it might take more or fewer questions to arrive at your final answer.)

What to Do If Your Intervention Was Successful

On the other hand, if you’re happy with the results of your intervention, then you’ve likely identified effective strategies for behavior management. However, you shouldn’t stop there. Daniels recommends that you continue to refine and build on these successful elements to further enhance performance and achieve additional objectives.

(Shortform note: Daniels’s advice to build on successful interventions mirrors the Japanese business philosophy known as kaizen, which means “continuous improvement.” To practice kaizen, you must constantly make small, incremental changes to improve processes and outcomes. This allows you to keep refining your strategies, adapt to new challenges and opportunities, and boost your company’s overall performance.)